New York as a Canvas and a Muse

Words by Grace Miskovsky, written in 2019, New York City.

The first time I saw a Basquiat painting in person, I cried. I do not know what came over me, but as soon as I laid my eyes on the larger-than-life painting, titled ​Glenn​, at the New York City Museum of Modern Art, a surge of emotion washed over me and tears spilled down my face. Was it the fact that it had taken me two years to see my biggest inspiration’s work in real life, in the city that he was born and raised? Or, was it the bold brushstrokes, the disturbing childlike depiction of a body-less man, monstrous, beautiful, cryptic yet familiar, teeth bared and hair crimped? Was it the fact that when you step closer to the painting, you can see the collage of intricate anatomical doodles that compile a strange and playful backdrop for the man’s head to float? Was it that I had always admired Basquiat’s impact and influence, and was now able to see it come to life before my own eyes? What has always struck me about Basquiat’s work is its ability to evoke a message to those willing to listen, how his expression is able to call forth an inner curiosity within any audience member, whose reaction, at the very least, is confusion and a desire to learn more. Throughout my own exploration of Basquiat’s life, especially now, as I explore and learn while living in New York, I have become increasingly intrigued by the city’s role in his work, and his work’s role in the larger scope of New York City’s art scene, and by extension, international art history. How was Basquiat a product of the city? How was New York a conduit for Basquiat’s expression? In what ways was the city impacted by his presence? How did New York serve as Basquiat’s canvas and his muse?

"Glenn," Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1985

In 1950, New York City was placed at the forefront of the global art community due to the introduction of post-war abstract expressionism, which marked the beginning of the American contemporary art movement. On the shoulders of abstract expressionism’s ambiguity, spontaneity, and enigmatic, bold brushstrokes came the vacant yet poignant color field painting, then the colorfully conspicuous pop art of the ’60s. The modernist period unfolded and evolved, and by the ’80s, it had reached its peak. It became hard to surpass the unfathomable worldwide recognition that the city had received when the art world turned its attention away from Paris to New York in the ’50s and ’60s. In the ’80s, the New York art scene faced the fact that from the top of the world, there was nowhere to go but down. Socially, the prestige of modern art was still very much present (if there is one thing that did not change from the ’50s to the ’80s it was the eagerness of art dealers and collectors to fund art history itself), yet the cultural significance that the modernist period carried started to wither. According to Marc Mayer, acclaimed art critic and author of ​Basquiat​, a series of epigraphs in conversation about New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, “The 1980s have been called, with reason, the ‘retrospective decade’ for their freewheeling reexamination of earlier styles...for all the enthusiasm, optimism, and wealth, as cultural moments go this one was uncomfortably posthumous. Through the chronic nostalgia of postmodernist historicism, unnervingly, we saw art’s life flash before our eyes.” The subject of art in the beginning of the ’80s began to stray away from distinguishable objects and the corporate symbols of commercial centric pop art, deviating from apparent artist's intention towards blatant tergiversation, and as a contextualized moment in art history, neo-expressionism and post-modernism became socially ambiguous. And as the sun set on the dying modernist era, Jean-Michel Basquiat stormed into New York City’s art scene and brought a youthful spark to its pre-existing, amorphous subculture of underground artists, a group compiled of names such as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. In this way, Basquiat was saying that the modernist period wasn’t going to end until he said so. Mayer says in his epigraph ​Basquiat in History,​ “Jean Michel Basquiat was a key artist for this anomalous time, and he was recognized immediately as someone who embodied the new spirit, someone capable of surviving the modernist denouement and bringing art back to life.”

How did Basquiat come to be the pinnacle of the modernist period? I have theorized that Jean-Michel Basquiat was a product of his environment and a product of his past. Several influences from his young life impacted what he physically included in his paintings, and by extension, his style, further influencing how he ended up in New York’s growing modern artist community later in life. Often times the experiences he was privy to were direct influences on the art he was incentivized and inspired to create. For example, in 1968, eight-year-old Jean-Michel was hit by a car and consequently hospitalized. During recovery, his mother gave him the book “Gray’s Anatomy,” a textbook of human anatomy, which influenced his fundamental artistic values later in his career, specifically relating to the creative exploration of the human body and its functions. In his professional career, his depictions of skeletons and skewed body parts were a defining piece of what made Basquiat’s work distinguishable. Looking at pieces such as ​Untitled (Black Skull), Riding With Death, Untitled (Skeleton Man with Crown), Anatomy Series, Untitled (Anatomy), ​and hundreds of other depictions of the human body and its functions, it is clear that Basquiat’s infatuation, affiliation, and fascination with anatomy was heavily influenced by the trauma of hospitalization as a child.

"Riding With Death," Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1988

Another example of Basquiat’s artistic embodiment of his childhood was expressed in a piece called ​Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump. ​According to Basquiat’s younger sisters Lisane and Jeanine Basquiat, ​Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump ​was a depiction of a certain memorable summer in the city. Jeanine said of the experience, “They opened up a lot of fire hydrants in New York City... it really stands out for me as a fun summer that we had with him. The painting is playful in nature and depicts a black man, presumably Jean-Michel, and a small dog next to what seems to be a fire hydrant. The piece contains a lesser sense of anger than most of his work, and in comparison, is slightly simplistic, with a lighthearted-looking Jean-Michel at the center. This work is an expression of the cherished moments of naive childhood in itself, further identifying this central influence for Basquiat. A second and equally important influence on Jean-Michel’s paintings, which correlates heavily to his youth, is his Puerto Rican and Haitian heritage. Basquiat himself admitted in one interview that his ethnic roots played a role in the way he made his art. One painting in particular that demonstrates this through a familial component is a piece by the name of ​Arroz con Pollo. In

"Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump," Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982

another interview with Jean-Michel’s sisters, they describe this piece as “referencing [his roots from] Haiti and Puerto Rico and Africa... things from our childhood, people that we knew.” The piece in question is strikingly vibrant and portrays a woman of blue-ish skin tone and a black man with a roasted chicken separating them, and is one of the few Basquiat paintings that depict both a man and woman in the same scene. This, paired with the implicit reference to his childhood and heritage leads me to believe the woman and man in the painting are his parents. What further reinforces my theory is the woman holding her left breast, which could be interpreted as a nod to breastfeeding and Basquiat’s earliest years. Additionally, an aspect of frustration, shown through angry crayon-like lines, and the erratic and skeletal depiction of the figures, adds yet another emotional layer to the piece. Basquiat admitted that the “frustration of the way I grew up” influenced his art. This “frustration” lay in a typical way of life. Basquiat describes having animosity towards “going to school and coming home and that was it... over and over again.” This painting, taken out of context, could represent a typical way of life that Basquiat expressed so much contempt for: a husband and wife, sitting at a dinner table over a plate of chicken. It was this very disdain towards routine and an ordinary way of living which drove Jean-Michel to run away from home at the age of seventeen.

Unnamed Interview with Jean-Michel Basquiat Basquiat: “Once I left home, I started doing all that drinking, throwing bottles and all that kind of stuff.” Interviewer: “And drawing on the streets?” Basquiat: “Yes.” Interviewer: “Was that rooted in frustration?” Basquiat: “I guess so.”

By the time Basquiat was a junior in high school, graffiti and street art had become increasingly recurrent in inner-city neighborhoods, namely the Lower East Side, home to Basquiat’s friend and fellow graffiti artist Al Diaz. The two attended an experiential learning-based, alternative arts school by the name of City-As-School in Greenwich, and shared a strong bond: both were artists, and Diaz was already established in the graffiti scene in his neighborhood. Diaz said in an interview conducted in 2017 regarding street art in the ’70s, “It was not the refined street culture it has become... it wasn’t an international phenomenon, it was ...like a kind of secret organisation... a way to be cool and different. No-one had been doing it before.” It was only with the creative support of nineteen-year-old Diaz did seventeen-year-old Basquiat conceive ‘SAMO’ in 1977, a fictional yet ideologically based entity meant to represent satirical infatuation with religion. SAMO came to life on the streets of New York City, after Diaz had graduated and Basquiat had dropped out and ran away from home; the two artists, who remained anonymous until 1978, spray painted SAMO-centric, elusive and thought-provoking phrases on different public spaces throughout Manhattan, which gained city-wide recognition. Cryptic phrases like “SAMO,,, AS AN END TO THE 9 TO 5 ‘I WENT TO COLLEGE’ ‘NOT 2-NITE HONEY’,,, BLUZ’,,,THINK,,,” “SAMO,,, 4 THE SO-CALLED AVANT-GARDE” “SAMO,,, AS AN ALTERNATIVE 2 ‘PLAYING ART’ WITH THE ‘RADICAL CHIC’ SECTION OF DADDY’$ FUNDS,,,”

Village Voice SAMO Story, 1978

“SAMO AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO GOD” could be recognized in subway stations, city blocks, benches, and other public spaces. While the introduction and implementation of the strangely characterized paradox could be considered the beginning of Basquiat’s public artistic career, many admirers still wonder: what ​was ​SAMO, really, besides the kickstart of a rebellious teens’ journey towards creative brilliance? SAMO was not just the existence of a figment of two teen artists’ imaginations; it was a conduit for the expression of their societal frustrations. Diaz commented, “What we were doing was more like Greco-Roman graffiti, making commentaries on the world around us whatever we were dissatisfied with...consumerism, religion, politics.” The SAMO creators’ true identity was exposed was through a piece written by ​Village Voice, ​where Diaz and Basquiat were interviewed, in which the latter said, “We can’t stand on the sidewalk all day screaming at people to clean up their acts, so we write on walls.” In this way, both Basquiat and Diaz were using New York City’s walls as a physical canvas to express contempt towards socio-political systems that were present in their urban environment.

As much as the societal landscape of New York influenced Basquiat’s work, so did the individuals around him who contributed to the city’s underground community of culturally rich, slightly anarchic, artistic minds. But to understand society and its microcosms, one must understand the economic landscape that exists as a foundation for how civilization functions. In the case of the ’70s, the fiscal crisis erupted as the city descended onto the brink of bankruptcy, which created a precedent of artists founding their own clubs and galleries, and by extension, a self-established, underground, socially-deviated culture. The importance of this precedent, created by New York’s economic landscape, was prevalent in the ’70s and ’80s, when amorphous groups of radical artists,

musicians, and intellectuals began to come together, specifically gathering in clubs and downtown party scenes. These clubs, such as the Mudd Club, provided artists with a sanctuary to have fun and break the rules; those ideals, whether that be in an artistic, intellectual, or literal sense, being common threads among New York City’s subculture. The New York Times said of the Mudd Club, ​“The club’s self-mythologizing denizens were a mix of the famous (Debbie Harry, the Talking Heads), the soon-to-be famous (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Debi Mazar) and the famous-below-14th Street (Glenn O’Brien, Chi Chi Valenti)... " The clubgoers danced, drank, snorted coke, watched live rock bands and held theme parties like the Puberty Ball in an anything-goes environment that seems impossible to recreate today.” Anthony Haden-Guest, author of ​The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night, ​described the Mudd Club as a haven for “local loft-dwelling artists and new wave glit​terati.” Because New York’s emerging artistic coterie and the city’s clubbing scene were incredibly intertwined, naturally, young Jean-Michel, coming down off SAMO-induced fame, rebellious in nature and deemed an outcast of civil society

due to his excessive drug use and habit of vandalizing walls, was welcomed into this societal crevice. In the words of Al ​Diaz, “He immersed himself very quickly. I mean, he ​immersed ​himself. He went from 0 to 90 in two seconds...he was like, ‘I’m an artist’... [he said] ‘Al, I know I’m going to be a famous artist. Not just any artist, a famous artist’. And then he told me he was going to die young... He was very focused and determined and deliberate about his whole everything. That was what he was going to do and that’s what he did.” Perhaps it was this very determination that wormed him into the woodwork of this microcosmic faction of society; his relationship with arguably his most influential mentor, Andy Warhol, began based on Jean-Michel’s strong-headed initiative and social grit.

While clubs may have been a safe haven for many emerging artists, it didn’t pay the bills; in 1979, in the early stages of his involvement with the avant-garde movement, Basquiat was kick-starting his career by selling $1 postcards on the streets of Soho when he ran into Andy Warhol in a Soho restaurant. True to character, nineteen year old Jean-Michel unabashedly pitched his hand made postcards to Warhol, who was in the middle of a meeting with art critic Henry Geldzahler. While Geldzahler wrote him off as “too young,” Warhol purchased a postcard, undoubtedly exciting a young, Warhol-loving Basquiat. The two met properly in 1982 at a photo shoot, where art dealer Bruno Bischofberger introduced and took photos of them together, inspiring Basquiat’s first piece in which Warhol was incorporated: ​Dos Cabezas, ​a self-portrait of the soon-to-be comrades. Warhol said of the interaction: “[Bischofberger] brought Jean-Michel Basquiat with him. He’s the kid who used the name “Samo” when he used to sit on the sidewalk in Greenwich Village and paint T-shirts, and I’d give him $10 here and there.... He was just one of those kids who drove me crazy.”

From the beginning, their relationship was based on the precedent of collaboration, at first forced (Warhol initially was not keen on the idea of Bischofberger bringing Basquiat to the photoshoot), which then blossomed into a genuine connection that indeed upheld the value of collaboration. The two were featured continuously in each others paintings over the courses of their respective careers, creating fearless masterpieces such as ​Heart Attack (1984​), ​Zenith (1985), ​Win $1,000,000​, and countless other curious creations which embodied the marriage of dichotomy and symbiosis. The juxtaposition of Warhol’s pop-arty, commercial-centric silkscreen prints and Basquiat’s defacement of them, shown in impassioned messages of socio-political references created an obscure conjunction of two contradictory styles. Looking at the extraordinary collaborations between the Basquiat and Warhol, I often question what exactly was behind the enigmatic union of their work, which was essentially consensual vandalism of the other artists’ piece. Perhaps what fueled their love for constant collaboration, however intriguingly strange, was a love for each other; according to fellow 80’s artist Jeffrey Deitch, "I'd never seen Andy so close with anyone, and I'd never seen Jean so close with anyone – these guys really loved each other." Ronnie Cutrone, Andy Warhol’s studio assistant, said of the two, “It was like some crazy art-world marriage and they were the odd couple. The relationship was symbiotic. Jean-Michel thought he needed Andy’s fame, and Andy thought he needed Jean-Michel’s new blood. Jean-Michel gave Andy a rebellious image again.” It is highly debated in the art community whether Jean-Michel and Andy’s relationship was purely based on authenticity, romantic love, mentorship, fame, or a mix of all of the above. While I believe that any genuine relationship is compiled of multifaceted layers of the good, the bad, and the ugly, the impact that Warhol had on an emerging Basquiat is not something to be looked over.

​Warhol-inspired portraits such as ​Untitled (Andy Warhol and Barbells) ​and ​Dos Cabezos, ​and the artists’ numerous collaborative paintings,​ ​were not the only ways in which Warhol influenced Basquiat; Warhol also filled the role of an essential paternal figure that Jean-Michel was missing after leaving home at seventeen, guiding him through the world of “adulting.” According to Warhol’s diaries, “Jean Michel called, he wanted some philosophy, he came over and we talked, and he’s afraid he’s just going to be a flash in the pan. And I told him not to worry, that he wouldn’t be. But then I got scared because he’s rented our building on Great Jones and what if he... doesn’t have the money to pay rent... [then] he wanted to buy the Great Jones Street carriage house from me but I [advised him against it].” In this way, Warhol acted not only as a source of artistic inspiration, but an advisor for his finances regarding New York property, therefore serving as a more realistic figure in Basquiat’s creatively-driven, conceptual world.

Basquiat and Warhol, 1983

The property in question in the previous journal entry is Basquiat’s Noho studio apartment that Warhol was the landlord of, which I had the pleasure to visit. The apartment now is a shell of the past; it is covered in an original SAMOc graffiti, and newer street artists have used the outside walls as a canvas themselves. Quirky and artistic drawings are plastered on the brick exterior, never covering Basquiat’s original graffiti work or the crown symbol tribute to him. I was able to step inside, and with the help of a curator who is currently preparing the interior for a gallery appearance in the next month, stand on Basquiat’s original tiled floors, which like the exterior, has graffiti drawings on the ground. A similar wave of emotion to that which came over me the first time I saw ​Glenn ​in real-life grasped me while standing inside the apartment that he died in. I imagined a 20-something year old Basquiat with a cigarette in hand, intricately adding cryptic phrases and sketches to huge canvases which likely reached the ceiling, stopping every so often to dance around the room to the tune of bebop and jazz music which was supposedly always blasting while he worked.

Basquiat had always shown an affiliation for the music and party scene, but his love for music and culture didn’t end there; He expressed a tenacious enamorment towards jazz music in particular. According to the New York Times, “​It is jazz — the musical style that made up the bulk of Basquiat’s huge record collection — that looms largest as a source of personal inspiration to him and as a subject matter.” I don’t believe that one can discuss the influence of jazz in New York City on a deeply complex body of work that references it, such as ​Horn Players, Trumpet, King Zulu, Now’s The Time, Untitled (Stardust), In the Wings, Bird on Money, or​ CPKRKR ​without discussing Basquiat’s deep understanding of American society. Diving into Basquiat’s painting ​Bird on Money​, a tribute to Basquiat’s jazz inspiration Charlie Parker, the references to the struggle of black musicians is not explicitly stated, but rather buried deep in Basquiat’s intention and authorial design. The meaning behind the name of the piece and the subject of the painting, a black colored bird, is a nod to Charlie Parker’s nickname, “Bird.” The original source of the nickname’s meaning is disputed, however one recognized theory is that “[Parker] lived free as a bird. Charlie Parker faced a tremendous amount of twists and turns during his lifetime including the horrifying act of racism in the 19​th century.” The overarching inspiration for ​Bird on Money, ​created in 1981, is Charlie Parker’s song “Yard Bird Suite,” which has been described as “[a song] of great significance during this time period. It was because of this song that added to the renovation of the ideology that the African Americans had toward the belief of equality. African American jazz musicians genuinely gained an identity of their own through the works of music.” Perhaps what is most striking about the piece on a surface level is its turbulent intricacy. One could say that the painting itself mimics jazz; it is wild and contained at the same time, depicts rhythmic flow, and as an entity is in conversation with itself, much like how the trumpets and drums of jazz seem to be talking to each other. In ​Bird on Money​, words sounding out ambiguous noise such as “aaaohaaa” can be identified, possibly signifying the sound of scatting, a vocal technique used in jazz and bebop. Another cultural reference is signified by the phrase “para morir” in the center of the painting, meaning “to die” in Spanish. The word “Greenwood” can also be clearly identified, an eerie nod to Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where Basquiat was buried. These words, phrases and sounds are seemingly unconnected, yet are in conversation with each other as different aspects of an ambidextrous piece, making it a witty representation of jazz itself. ​In the words of art journalist Evan Haga,​ ​“Jean-Michel Basquiat painted jazz music so well that he’s become an indelible part of its tradition... only Basquiat managed to engage so deeply with jazz history and its implications while ​also​ committing to a creative process that mirrored the art form’s improvised figuration.” ​Basquiat indeed painted jazz like no other, and likely posed questions such as, what are the implications of jazz music? Where is jazz rooted? How are the effects of jazz seen today in American society? While we will never fully know what Basquiat’s intentions were, I would argue that ​Bird on Money​ yes, mimics jazz, and is an incredible portrayal of it as an independent entity, but is also a testament to Basquiat’s infatuation and understanding of American society, a society which music and art are a conduit of.

"Bird on Money," Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1981

Basquiat’s musical interests, while centrally rooted in jazz, covered a multitude of genres such as classic rock, soul, bebop, experimental DJing, and hip-hop. Just as jazz’s social importance was prevalent in Basquiat’s work, so was hip-hop as it started establishing itself in the ’80s. Franklin Sirmans, acclaimed art critic and museum curator, described rap as ​“a hidden transcript... cloaked speech and disguised cultural codes to comment on and challenge aspect of current power inequalities... symbolic and ideological warfare with institutions and groups that symbolically, ideologically, and materially oppress african americans.” There was a nuanced difference in the way that Basquiat incorporated jazz versus hip-hop in his art. While jazz was consistently incorporated in the actual subjects of Basquiat’s work, the influence of hip hop was more so on an underlying level. For example, distinguishable hip-hop figures were never featured as the subjects of his paintings (possibly because hip-hop culture was only beginning to be recognized by popular media in the 80’s) as they were in pieces that incorporated jazz. The way I see hip-hop as different for Basquiat lies in an analogy: the emergence of hip-hop itself is the emergence of Jean-Michel Basquiat as an artist.

Hip-hop as a subculture includes many elements, such as dance, music, and art, which in the ’70s and ’80s was portrayed through tagging and graffiti, and the beginnings of Basquiat’s career was similar to those of the modern hip-hop movement; it all started with graffiti. COCO144, a prominent hip-hop graffiti writer in the 80s said, “​I was listening to jazz, Latin jazz, and rock. This was before hip-hop was created. Anybody that does their homework would know graffiti came first.” The importance of both Jean-Michel’s career and hip-hop beginning with graffiti not only points to a stylistic similarity, it points to a fundamental connection between the two: contempt for authority. Art journalist Mitch Sawyer commented, “Graffiti was undeniably a creative endeavor, but the act of law-breaking was intertwined with its aesthetic.” This undeniably ties into Basquiat’s defiance towards authority and ordinary routineness that was influential to him in his younger years. Moreover, hip-hop artists challenged systematic American ideals and critiqued the things around them, such as political corruption and racism, as Basquiat did in many of his paintings. Mel Mel, a New York City based rapper in the 80s who was a part of the Furious Five rapped in a song produced in 1983, “​Ah New York New York big city of dreams​/​And everything in New York ain't always what it seems/You might get fooled if you come from out of town​... ​A castle in the sky, one mile high/Built to shelter the rich and greedy/Rows of eyes, disguised as windows/Lookin down on the poor and the needy​.” While hip-hop’s expression of this was through rap, Basquiat expressed his socio-political beliefs in the phrases that covered his canvases: “OBNOXIOUS LIBERALS,” “NOT FOR SALE,” “THE IRONY OF A NEGRO POLICEMAN,” “HOLLYWOOD AFRICANS,” “GANGSTERISM,” “HEROISM,” and countless other messages relating to politics, classism and racism. The Guggenheim Museum commented on Basquiat’s role in expressing his socio-political values, “During the 1960’s and ’80s, the Black Power movement called for the black population to unite, not to integrate. Basquiat defended these ideas in his work and criticized the abuses of power committed by authorities, even depicting several scenes of police violence in his artwork, such as ​The Death of Michael Stewart​ ​(1983)​.” The piece in question ​was made in 1983 and depicted the death of Michael Stewart, a black graffiti artist in New York, who was beaten to death by the transit police after spray painting on a subway station wall. He died of injuries from the beating a few days later in the hospital. According to the New York Times, this incident was the “latest example of racially motivated police violence.” As this incident was around fifteen years after the civil rights movement, racial tensions, particularly those present between the police and black and brown youth, were still high. ​This environment of tension, hate, and uncertainty created an almost perfect artistic climate for raw, genuine, and emotional expression to act as a window into the world of injustice, which Basquiat took full advantage of. In ​The Death of Michael Stewart, ​the phrase “Defacemento,” or “Defacement” (a nod towards how the police likely viewed the graffiti: a defacement of public property) is chalked at the top of the canvas, another perfect example of the phrases which he used to portray political messages. Basquiat’s unique way of expressing his values through words mimics the rap aspect of hip-hop; according to ​New York based hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy said of Basquiat, “If you read the canvases out loud to yourself, the repitition, the rhythm, you can hear Jean-Michel thinking.

"Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart)", Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1983

As many things are with Jean-Michel Basquiat’s multitude of inspirations, the presence of hip-hop and the social importance of black culture are strongly linked and interwoven inside each other. The Schirn Museum in Frankfurt said of Basquiat, “He belongs to a black tradition of making work that is heady enough to confound academics and hip enough to capture the attention span of the hip-hop nation.” Not only was Basquiat able to bring light to a historically underrepresented group, he was able to do it effectively. Basquiat, through his representation of black artists, was paying tribute to those who had come before him and their impact on the artistic landscape of the 80s, whether that be through a portrait of Miles Davis or incorporating words and phrases relating to hip-hop culture. Sociologist and professor Michael Eric Dyson said,“From sports to fashion, to music to film, innovations in American art owe a debt to the creativity of black culture.” And in New York in the 80s, popular culture, as influenced by black culture, was flourishing; Charlie Parker was touring the city, rap began to emerge in the Bronx with Kool Herc and the Fab 5, Andy and Jean-Michel were compiling a collaborative portfolio of artistically rich paintings, street art and graffiti were rampant on NYC streets, the downtown clubs always offered a good time, and Basquiat was rising to stardom on an international level.

While attempting to grapple with the quirkiness of Jean-Michel’s life, I have asked myself: what made Jean-Michel so different from other New York based artists at the time? Alongside legendary names such as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, what did Basquiat have to do to distinguish himself? One theory is that it was the strange dichotomy of his integral and extensive immersion in underground contemporary artists, the living embodiments of liberal subculture, paired with an odd involvement with the polished fine art dealers of corporate America and Europe that made him so different from many artists involved in the underground movement. Through the sophisticated connections that he established in his life, he was able to turn the eyes of art aficionados towards a submersive, experimental community of artists, while thriving in economic praise and simultaneously criticizing institutions that the corporate art world is built on. Over the span of his eight year career, Basquiat began to draw the attention of art dealers and galleries on a national, and subsequently international level, and was represented in New York and Europe, leading to roaring artistic and financial success. His career officially started with the first public exhibition that he was featured in: the 1980 Times Square Show in New York. This gallery was a collaborative show put on at a gutted building on 41st street, put together by Colab, an emerging artist group in the Lower East Side, and Fashion Moda, an avant-garde graffiti group based in the Bronx. The union of these artistic groups, and its inclusion of Jean-Michel, represented the cementing of the neo-pop, neo-expressionist subculture while simultaneously solidifying his role in this community. It has been described as “​the first radical art show of the eighties.” ​The Times Square Show brought Basquiat to the forefront of the city’s underground artistic network, and was important because he was able to establish himself in a subculture which valued expression and going against societal norms, an environment in which Basquiat thrived in. Because this subculture gave him the agency to do with his art what he liked, he gained the recognition of more established art communities in the city.

What really put Basquiat in the spotlight of the art scene on a national level was his involvement at an established gallery exhibition by the name of New York/New Wave, where his work was featured in 1981 next to Andy Warhol, Zephyr, and other artists that were recognized by popular culture and media. According to the Schirn Museum, “​The opening night [of New York/New Wave] saw the writing of art history: The exhi​bi​tion was a block​buster success and opened up the New York art scene to the then 20-year-old Basquiat... [it was a] portrait of the under​ground art.” Not only did Basquiat gain a great amount of city-wide recognition because of New York/New Wave, the exhibition also turned the city’s attention to

the underground artistic movement, a movement which ordinary New Yorkers were fascinated with. Just as New Yorkers were infatuated with the downtown artist scene, Basquiat was infatuated with the idea of fame. ​Basquiat said in an interview, “Since I was seventeen, I thought I might be a star. I’d think about all my heroes, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix... I had a romantic feeling about how these people became famous.” This incentive and fascination with the idea of fame and the romanticism surrounding it likely fueled Basquiat’s decisions to promote his art beyond New York. In 1981, Basquiat was featured in Galleria Emilio Mazzoli in Modena, Italy, and subsequently in 1982, Documenta 7 in Kassal, West Germany. As a byproduct of his international representation, the New York art scene began to take him a little more seriously, and his rise to fame only grew. Once again, Basquiat’s fame not only benefited him, but those around him, as after his shows in Europe in the ’80s, the subculture began gaining established recognition and showing up in organized galleries rather than having exhibitions in grunge clubs and gutted buildings. Such NYC exhibits which him and his friends were represented at include the Fun Gallery, East Seventh Street Gallery, Kenkeleba House, Gracie Mansion, B side, Area X, and Civilian Warfare.

Basquiat indeed acquired the fame that had infatuated him all his life. In the late ’80s, before his death, the New York Times commented, “​Basquiats have sold at auction recently for prices between $32,000 and $99,000,” and according to art dealer Susan Dunne, “[his work is] extremely sought after by both European and American collectors.” But in 1988, when Jean-Michel was 27 years old, he died of a heroin overdose in his Grand Street apartment, the apartment I stood inside of in Noho. There are many theories surrounding his death: did quick fame burn him out? Was his overdose an accident? A statement? Did he think he was invincible? Personally, I find it fascinating that he had identified specifically Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin as sources of inspiration and infatuation, as both of those artistic figures are part of the conspiracy “The 27 Club,” a group of artistic icons (Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Brian Jones) who died at the age of 27 from violent, often drug-related deaths. The world will never know what motivated Basquiat’s death, but I feel it is my duty as someone who has been hugely inspired by him to honor him and learn as much as I can about his life, specifically surrounding his explicit and implicit influences and the impact he had on New York City’s artistic landscape.

What is so continuously captivating about Basquiat is that we as readers have the ability to pick apart at his methods and inspirations to collect a cohesive narrative about his intention. Very little in his work is given to us explicitly, and we are left to read deeper into the meaning behind each brushstroke or phrase. Everything we need to know about his thought process is clearly laid out for us in oftentimes discombobulated pieces, and I am fascinated in finding the deeper meaning behind all of it. In the words of Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya of the Guggenheim Museum, “What was unique about him at that particular time in the ‘80s was the way he combined sources from popular culture with sources from the history of art and literature, fusing everything together and also bringing in his own experience and racial identity. Sometimes you feel that his mind was going faster than his hand.” Basquiat’s fame reached its peak years after his death, selling multi-million dollar pieces and showing up in a multitude of tribute galleries across the globe to honor his impact and presence. To put it plain and simply, Basquiat was a genius. He used the physical landscape of New York as a canvas for his earlier SAMO works, and the socio-cultural-political landscape of New York as a source of continuous influence. In turn, he impacted not only the New York art scene, but international art history itself, the city allowing him to use New York to change the world. Basquiat thought about the bigger picture, too. “I don’t think about art when I’m working. I think about life.” - Jean-Michel Basquiat

Works Cited Basquiat, Jean-Michel, and Dieter Buchhart. ​Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now's the Time​. Art Gallery of Ontario, 2015. Basquiat, Jean Michel, and Larry Warsh. ​Basquiat-Isms​. Princeton ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019. https://books.google.com/books?id=qz9xDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=“We can’t stand on the sidewalk all day screaming at people to clean up their acts, so we write on walls.”&source=bl&ots=Wh0gODunUu&sig=ACfU3U33qyVEhGmTothMf4APdku67aG sBg&hl=en&ppis=_e&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjepa6-77PmAhUPLKwKHa1EAQ8Q6AEw AHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=“We can’t stand on the sidewalk all day screaming at people to clean up their acts, so we write on walls.”&f=false. Basquiat, Jean-Michel, Marc Mayer, and Fred Hoffman. ​Basquiat​. London: Merrell, 2010. Basquiat, Jean-Michel, Marc Mayer, and Franklin Sirmans. ​Basquiat​. London: Merrell, 2010.

“Basquiat Biography: Galerie Bruno Bischofberger.” Mysite. Accessed December 14, 2019. http://www.brunobischofberger.com/basquiat-biography​. “Basquiat, Jean-Michel.” ​Grove Art​, 8 June 2019, www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-97818844 46054-e-7000006752?rskey=yXtLSk​. “Basquiat Timeline.” artist-timeline. Accessed December 14, 2019. http://basquiat.com/artist-timeline.htm. “Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks.” Brooklyn Museum. Accessed December 14, 2019. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/3313​. Bloom, Tricia Laughlin., et al. Basquiat: the Unknown Notebooks. Skira Rizzoli Publications, 2015.

buijk51. “The Elimination of Racism through the Music of Jazz.” afram101autumn2015, November 20, 2015. https://afram101autumn2015.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/the-elimination-of-racism-throug h-the-music-of-jazz/. Colucci, Emily, Hyperallergic, Dan Schindel, Alexandra M. Thomas, and Tasneem Merchant. “Why Are We Revisiting the Times Square Show?” Hyperallergic, October 15, 2012. https://hyperallergic.com/58439/why-are-we-revisiting-the-times-square-show/. “Culture - Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Life and Work behind the Legend.” BBC. BBC, July 9, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150709-jean-michel-basquiat-the-life-and-work-behi nd-the-legend. Dazed. “The Story of SAMO©, Basquiat's First Art Project.” Dazed, September 6, 2017. https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/37058/1/al-diaz-on-samo-and-basqu iat.

Dazed. “The Best, Worst, and Weirdest Parts of Warhol and Basquiat's Friendship.” Dazed, May 28, 2019. https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/44600/1/never-before-seen-photos-d iary-andy-warhol-jean-michel-basquiat-friendship. Dyson, Michael Eric. ​The Michael Eric Dyson Reader​. New York: Basic Civitas, 2005. https://books.google.com/books?id=9CllpAHj6ogC&pg=PT363&lpg=PT363&dq=From sports to fashion, to music to film, innovations in American art owe a debt to the creativity of black culture.”&source=bl&ots=svDMS5Cbuk&sig=ACfU3U3qj50MF2_8sKQ_qfb09QB5ZxT mwQ&hl=en&ppis=_e&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiN35PG_rPmAhWihOAKHQWDB74Q6A EwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=From sports to fashion, to music to film, innovations in American art owe a debt to the creativity of black culture.”&f=false. Ehrlich, Dimitri, and Gregor Ehrlich. “Summer Guide - A History of Graffiti in Its Own Words -- New York Magazine - Nymag.” New York Magazine. New York Magazine, June 22, 2006. http://nymag.com/guides/summer/17406/.

Eshun, Ekow. “Bowie, Bach and Bebop: How Music Powered Basquiat.” The New York Times. The New York Times, September 22, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/arts/design/basquiat-barbican-london.html. Freedman, Samuel G. “NEW YORK RACE TENSION IS RISING DESPITE GAINS.” The New York Times​, The New York Times, 29 Mar. 1987, www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/nyregion/new-york-race-tension-is-rising-despite-gains.html. “Forever Young and Miserable.” ​The Guardian​, Guardian News and Media, 11 Mar. 2000, ​www.theguardian.com/books/2000/mar/11/books.guardianreview3​. “From the Subways to Soho.” Interview Magazine, March 30, 2011. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/jean-michel-basquiat-henry-geldzahler. “Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (Ft. Duke Bootee) – New York New York.” Genius, January 1, 1983. https://genius.com/Grandmaster-flash-and-the-furious-five-new-york-new-york-lyrics.

Haga, Evan. “Basquiat and Jazz: A Guide.” TIDAL The Stories Behind the Music Basquiat and Jazz A Guide Comments. Accessed December 14, 2019. http://read.tidal.com/article/basquiat-and-jazz-a-guide. “How The Times Squar​e Show Changed The New York Art World in 1980.” Widewalls. Accessed December 14, 2019. ​https://www.widewalls.ch/times-square-show-1980/​. Inspiringquotes.us. “Top 27 Quotes of JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT Famous Quotes and Sayings: Inspringquotes.us.” Inspiring Quotes. Accessed December 14, 2019. https://www.inspiringquotes.us/author/4040-jean-michel-basquiat. “Jean-Michel Basquiat Quotes.” BrainyQuote. Xplore. Accessed December 14, 2019. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/jeanmichel_basquiat_351277. “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.” Jean-Michel Basquiat | Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Accessed December 14, 2019. http://basquiat.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/collaborations/.

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Mcguigan, Cathleen. “NEW ART, NEW MONEY.” ​The New York Times​, The New York Times, 10 Feb. 1985, www.nytimes.com/1985/02/10/magazine/new-art-new-money.html?searchResultPosition=1​. Mitter, Siddhartha. “Behind Basquiat's 'Defacement': Reframing a Tragedy.” ​The New York Times​, The New York Times, 31 July 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/arts/design/basquiat-defacement-guggenheim-curator.html​. Reid, Tiana. “Black Ghosts: Basquiat's ‘Defacement’ at the Guggenheim.” ​Art in America​, 19 July 2019, www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/basquiat-defacement-guggenheim-protests- racist-violence/. Roberts, Sam. “DEATH STIRS POLICE BRUTALITY CHARGES.” The New York Times. The New York Times, September 29, 1983. https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/29/nyregion/death-stirs-police-burtality-charges.html​. Schjeldahl, Peter. “Basquiat's Memorial to a Young Artist Killed by Police.” ​The New Yorker​, The New Yorker, 9 July 2019,

Sawyer, Mitch. “Hip Hop, Punk, and the Rise of Graffiti in 1980s New York.” Artsy, May 8, 2017. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-hip-hop-punk-rise-graffiti-1980s-new-york. Urban, Daniel. “Jazz, Bebop and Basquiat.” SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, April 23, 2018. https://www.schirn.de/en/magazine/context/jazz_bebop_basquiat/. “Warhol and Basquiat: The Art World's Most Notorious Bromance.” Sleek Magazine. Accessed December 14, 2019. https://www.sleek-mag.com/article/warhol-basquiat-bromance/. Webber, Jason. “Bully for Basquiat.” Toledo City Paper, February 1, 2019. https://toledocitypaper.com/online/bully-for-basquiat/​. Wines​, Michael. “Jean Michel Basquiat: Hazards Of Sudden Success and Fame.” The New York Times. The New York Times, August 27, 1988. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/27/arts/jean-michel-basquiat-hazards-of-sudden-succes s-and-fame.html​.

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